Am 25.04.2023 um 02:04 schrieb De'vID via tlhIngan-Hol:

I have to be able to convince the publisher that the new edition will sell better than the previous one.

That indeed is the main problem. Why should they put effort in a book which is already selling very well? And if it's not, why should they make an updated version? When I proposed my Klingon teaching book to them, they said that they already have three books about Klingon, and don't need another one. :-(

to a general audience. Having 10 pages on how to compare two things in Klingon, or having a 400+ page book that explains how to use every verb in detail, might be desirable to hardcore Klingonists, but will likely be considered off-putting to a general audience.

Yes, true. It should remain as short as possible and only include minor hints on usage, in the same short way it does in the original. Additional, detailed information should remain in special books by the KLI or other publishers. -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.tlhInganHol.com http://klingon.wiki/En/NewKlingonDictionary

On Tue, Apr 25, 2023 at 11:31 PM Arttu Hiekkanen via tlhIngan-Hol < tlhingan-hol@lists.kli.org> wrote:

For the sales pitch you'll do well to remember that Klingonists will likely buy a copy for use and one or more for the shelf.

I think this is probably true, but I don't think it's a good sales pitch. How many such Klingonists do you estimate there are, who will buy two copies of the dictionary? -- De'vID

Am 28.04.2023 um 23:19 schrieb Will Martin via tlhIngan-Hol:

Are you kidding?

I have a couple TKDs written in languages I don’t speak.

That's not De'vID's point. The point is that there are not that many Klingonists generally who would buy such a second book. Most people who have bought TKD just for keeping it in the shelf will probably not care about an updated version. That's how publishers think. -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.tlhInganHol.com http://klingon.wiki/En/TheKlingonDictionary

On Fri, Apr 28, 2023 at 11:20 PM Will Martin via tlhIngan-Hol < tlhingan-hol@lists.kli.org> wrote:

Are you kidding?

I have a couple TKDs written in languages I don’t speak.

I have The Original one (2nd Edition, but it was the first one I bought) that has all my annotations in it. What it DOESN’T have is a front cover, since that fell off decades ago. I have one or two in relatively pristine condition.

If another edition comes out, I’m buying at least 2, and I’m not all that active anymore. I need one to use and write annotations in, and one to keep.

I don't doubt that there are people who will buy two or even more copies of a new edition of TKD. What I'm saying is that one should be aware of self-selection bias: if you are on this mailing list, the chances are that you are actually highly *atypical* for the average purchaser of TKD. I guarantee you that the number of people who care about why the aspect suffix sometimes appears on the second verb of a sentence-as-object construction is simply miniscule compared to the number of people who want to figure out what Worf or L'Rell said in some episode (like the way the 1992 edition lets you figure out the dialogues from Star Trek III, V, and VI), or who want to have a ready bunch of Klingon phrases for a Klingon in some game. The publisher is simply not interested that people who care about how aspect suffixes work will buy more than one copy of the book -- and I say this as someone who cares a great deal about how aspect suffixes work. What they care about is whether it will appeal to people who follow the currently running shows or who play ongoing licensed video games. I'm literally willing to wager on this: whether or not the publisher will be convinced to print a new edition is on the line. My pitch is going to be: fans of the current shows, recent movies, and licensed games will buy a new edition of TKD; they would've bought a copy already, if only it wasn't so obviously outdated, so you're leaving money on the table by not updating it. (In fact, we know the publisher is aware that the outdatedness is hurting sales, because they removed the cover that prominently features Kruge from Star Trek III and says on the top "Including New Material from Star Trek TNG and Star Trek VI", and replaced it with a plain red "timeless" cover.) If you think this is the wrong pitch and that I should focus on people who will buy multiple copies instead, prove to me with data that people who buy multiple copies make up a significant portion of the book's sales. I'm willing to entertain that this might be true, but I'm not making that claim to the publisher unless I have facts to back it up. -- De'vID

I'll bet that most people who bought a first edition didn't buy a second edition. I'll further bet that most people who bought a first edition never expected to, and never did, go on to seriously try to learn Klingon. They bought it as a fannish novelty. That's what most people who bought a second edition did, too. As for number of copies sold, the first edition was in print for, what, six years? And the second has been in print for thirty-one years? Do the math. -------- Original message -------- From: Will Martin via tlhIngan-Hol <tlhingan-hol@lists.kli.org> Date: 4/29/23 8:29 AM (GMT-05:00) To: tlhingan-hol@kli.org Cc: Will Martin <lojmitti7wi7nuv@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [tlhIngan Hol] wishlist for TKD 3ed The 2nd Edition sold a lot more copies than the first did, and I doubt there were many who bought the first who didn’t also by the 2nd. So, how many 2nd edition TKDs were sold? I thought I once heard that it was something like 750,000 copies. By contrast, my Guitar Owner’s Manual sold something like 12,000 copies, which the publisher thought was a good run. pItlh charghwI’ ‘utlh (ghaH, ghaH, -Daj) On Apr 28, 2023, at 8:45 PM, De'vID via tlhIngan-Hol <tlhingan-hol@lists.kli.org> wrote: On Fri, Apr 28, 2023 at 11:20 PM Will Martin via tlhIngan-Hol <tlhingan-hol@lists.kli.org<mailto:tlhingan-hol@lists.kli.org>> wrote: Are you kidding? I have a couple TKDs written in languages I don’t speak. I have The Original one (2nd Edition, but it was the first one I bought) that has all my annotations in it. What it DOESN’T have is a front cover, since that fell off decades ago. I have one or two in relatively pristine condition. If another edition comes out, I’m buying at least 2, and I’m not all that active anymore. I need one to use and write annotations in, and one to keep. I don't doubt that there are people who will buy two or even more copies of a new edition of TKD. What I'm saying is that one should be aware of self-selection bias: if you are on this mailing list, the chances are that you are actually highly *atypical* for the average purchaser of TKD. I guarantee you that the number of people who care about why the aspect suffix sometimes appears on the second verb of a sentence-as-object construction is simply miniscule compared to the number of people who want to figure out what Worf or L'Rell said in some episode (like the way the 1992 edition lets you figure out the dialogues from Star Trek III, V, and VI), or who want to have a ready bunch of Klingon phrases for a Klingon in some game. The publisher is simply not interested that people who care about how aspect suffixes work will buy more than one copy of the book -- and I say this as someone who cares a great deal about how aspect suffixes work. What they care about is whether it will appeal to people who follow the currently running shows or who play ongoing licensed video games. I'm literally willing to wager on this: whether or not the publisher will be convinced to print a new edition is on the line. My pitch is going to be: fans of the current shows, recent movies, and licensed games will buy a new edition of TKD; they would've bought a copy already, if only it wasn't so obviously outdated, so you're leaving money on the table by not updating it. (In fact, we know the publisher is aware that the outdatedness is hurting sales, because they removed the cover that prominently features Kruge from Star Trek III and says on the top "Including New Material from Star Trek TNG and Star Trek VI", and replaced it with a plain red "timeless" cover.) If you think this is the wrong pitch and that I should focus on people who will buy multiple copies instead, prove to me with data that people who buy multiple copies make up a significant portion of the book's sales. I'm willing to entertain that this might be true, but I'm not making that claim to the publisher unless I have facts to back it up. -- De'vID _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org

On Sat, Apr 29, 2023 at 3:21 PM Russ Perry Jr via tlhIngan-Hol < tlhingan-hol@lists.kli.org> wrote:

But that’s interesting by itself…. The second edition has been in print for 31 years? And as someone else noted, they’ve changed the cover?

The red cover version has the same contents as the white cover 1992 version. Based on photos of the copyright page shared on Discord, the 1992 edition restarts the print run at 1, but the red cover continues the same print run as the white cover version. Someone shared a photo of the red cover version which was print run 40, so there's been at least 40 printings of the white/red cover versions together.

This implies that there *is* demand, and the publisher knows it, or it would have been out of print for years, maybe decades. That makes me hopeful that a third edition is a possibility, though sadly, I don’t have any good ideas as to how to sell the idea to the publisher.

The fact that people continue to buy the old edition doesn't necessarily work in our favour: from the publisher's point of view, if the existing edition is selling well, the expense of producing a new edition may not be worth it. Why take a risk with a product that continues to sell X copies a year, if they're already making some money by doing nothing? They have finite resources. They have to weigh updating TKD against, e.g., publishing a new Strange New Worlds novel with Anson Mount and Ethan Peck on the cover (i.e., actors who are actually onscreen in currently running shows) which may be projected to sell 10X copies. Right now, there are no prominent Klingon characters in currently running shows to put on the cover of a new TKD. I dunno, maybe we can convince them to put old Worf (from Picard season 3) on the cover. (I know some people here who might be upset by that because of Michael Dorn's attitude towards the Klingon language in the past, but I'm willing to bet that putting Dorn on the cover will increase the sales of TKD overall.) But even in that case, is a new TKD going to outsell a new SNW novel, or any number of other things they could do which might cost the same amount of money? And *that* is the case I have to make to the publishers in our proposal, that a new TKD *would* be more profitable than projects with similar cost. Even if 100 KLI members were committed to buying 10 copies each, it's completely irrelevant if the publisher believes they can spend the same amount of money and sell more than 1000 copies of some *other* book. (If we're *really* lucky, the next Star Trek movie or TV show will feature Klingons or a Klingon character prominently, the way that Star Trek III, V, and VI, followed by TNG, made TKD so popular to begin with.) -- De'vID

Am 30.04.2023 um 01:16 schrieb De'vID via tlhIngan-Hol:

if the existing edition is selling well, the expense of producing a new edition may not be worth it.

Indeed. They only look at the money, that's their job.

know some people here who might be upset by that because of Michael Dorn's attitude towards the Klingon language in the past,

And as a side note: we have never seen Worf speak Klingon! Maybe few words only, but not in a way you'd remember him as the Klingon speaker. (in the universe, I even doubt her really does speak Klingon, since he grew up among humans)

(If we're *really* lucky, the next Star Trek movie or TV show will feature Klingons or a Klingon character prominently, the way that Star

Well - SPOILERS ahead - the latest preview of season 2 of SNW did show some Klingons. But we don't know how much they'll do there. Alan's suggestion to get a permission for KLI press certainly will be quite difficult, because - going back to argument 1: if the 2nd edition is selling well, they would be stupid to give away the rights to someone else. (and they surely also think about: what if the 3rd edition really is selling better than the 2nd?) One other possibility is of course to make an "addendum" version book, which completes the 2nd edition instead of replacing it. Did anyone think about that? -- Lieven L. Litaer aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany" http://www.tlhInganHol.com http://klingon.wiki/En/NewKlingonDictionary

And that's just Michael Dorn's on-screen work. In 1996 he and Roxann Biggs-Dawson (B'Elanna) also recorded an audiotape abridgement of The Klingon Way (TKW), which had been published earlier that year. Voragh ------------------------------Original Message------------------------------ From: SuStel via tlhIngan-Hol Worf is known for being more Klingon than Klingons, because his isolation from his own people makes him compensate. Of course he speaks Klingon. He demonstrates knowledge of Klingon often. Michael Dorn was Worf during the long period where the only Klingon spoken was a word here or there, and Worf had more here-or-there words than anyone. Worf is shown speaking more Klingon than any other Klingon.

On 5/1/2023 1:44 PM, Lieven L. Litaer via tlhIngan-Hol wrote:

So if you want to stay in the game: Worf does not speak good Klingon, or has an unknown strange dialect, or has a terrible English accent.

I am happy to distinguish between Worf speaking Klingon and Michael Dorn not speaking Klingon. I also don't try to make the case that all the rocks on alien planets are made of styrofoam. That's not getting out of the game. That's recognizing the limitations of the medium. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name

On Mon, May 1, 2023 at 7:45 PM Lieven L. Litaer via tlhIngan-Hol < tlhingan-hol@lists.kli.org> wrote:

So if you want to stay in the game: Worf does not speak good Klingon, or has an unknown strange dialect, or has a terrible English accent.

That seems to be confusing Worf (the character) with Michael Dorn (the actor). In-universe, Worf speaks Klingon in a way that other characters react to him as if he were a fluent Klingon speaker. There was a period during which he was considered an outcast, and none of the Klingons who mocked him commented on his inability to speak the language or having a Terran accent. Other presumably fluent Klingon characters, like Gowron or Martok, have also spoken "bad" (from a real-world point of view) Klingon, but we also accept that they're actually speaking "good" Klingon in-universe, and that our inability to understand them is due to regional variation or dialect. It's like those American movies where an American English-speaking actor is playing a German (or French or Russian or whatever) character, and throughout most of the movie, they're speaking English with a "German" accent. But for some pivotal scene, when they need to keep our hero (or the audience) in the dark, the character switches to speaking German. The actor may speak German very badly, but the audience is supposed to understand that the character is, in fact, speaking fluent German. Outside of the Klingonist community, most Star Trek fans assume that Michael Dorn is speaking "proper" Klingon in character as Worf. When people find out I know Klingon, they often say things like, "So you must understand everything that Worf says, right?" Like I said, whatever you may feel about Dorn's attitude or ability when it comes to Klingon, most Star Trek fans associate Worf with the language. -- De'vID

Well, first of all: THANK YOU! I think this is something most beginners like me were dreaming of! One of the biggest problems learning Klingon is that the information is *really* scattered and it's also difficult to know what's up to date.

I have to be able to convince the publisher that the new edition will sell better than the previous one. The book still has to be accessible to a general audience. Having 10 pages on how to compare two things in Klingon, or having a 400+ page book that explains how to use every verb in detail, might be desirable to hardcore Klingonists, but will likely be considered off-putting to a general audience. Peppering a shorter book with examples drawn from the movies/TV shows is more likely to result in it getting published.

I fully understand the problem, but: I would be really grateful if all the information which doesn't fit in the book was somehow accesible, say online. I would certainly pay for a digital copy of it.

On 5/1/2023 9:14 AM, Will Martin via tlhIngan-Hol wrote:

The reason the second edition had everything in an addendum is that, in those days, pages were printed with printing presses. You did all the electronic stuff to create all the text and illustrations and instead of using a laser printer to print the book, you created physical rotating drums that were inked and rolled over moving sheets of paper. It was cheaper to create more drums for the addendum pages and keep using the old drums for the first edition pages than it would have been to replace all the drums.

I’m pretty sure that they print books electronically now.

Re-laying out a book, even electronically, keeps the process more or less the same. It's much easier to just add an addendum to the back than it is to lay out a whole book all over again. Whether it's done with physical plates or on a computer, it's labor-intensive. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name

On Tue, Apr 25, 2023 at 11:31 PM Arttu Hiekkanen via tlhIngan-Hol < tlhingan-hol@lists.kli.org> wrote:

2. Appendix should have a list of adverbs for quick glancing through. I find myself using http://klingon.wiki/En/Adverbial for reference.

Do other people also find this useful? There are a lot of adverbials now, compared to the previous edition, so obviously the full list can't be introduced at the start of section 5.4. Any other suggestions for lists of useful things for the appendix? Or any comments about the various charts and so on in the previous edition about how they are/aren't useful, could be arranged or organised better, or otherwise improved? -- De'vID

I didn’t know of it before, but I do now and will use it! One suggestion: someone should add the Klingon word for adverbial {qunI’} to the page, perhaps in the first sentence. Searching {qunI’} in the search box came up with zero matches let alone this page. Voragh _________________________________________________ From: tlhIngan-Hol On Behalf Of De'vID via tlhIngan-Hol Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2023 10:25 PM On Tue, Apr 25, 2023 at 11:31 PM Arttu Hiekkanen via tlhIngan-Hol <tlhingan-hol@lists.kli.org<mailto:tlhingan-hol@lists.kli.org>> wrote: 2. Appendix should have a list of adverbs for quick glancing through. I find myself using http://klingon.wiki/En/Adverbial<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/klingon.wiki/En/Adverbial__;!!BpyFHLRN4TMTrA!4AVA_-KoLdhmI3oV6WoW74fs_fVSu-IYWP2SkCDzVFFe-FphoRAOofDGxDppbChnB4R5Pj8kTEy9XHEj9lwB0cfMo7G-$> for reference. Do other people also find this useful? There are a lot of adverbials now, compared to the previous edition, so obviously the full list can't be introduced at the start of section 5.4.

Thanks. I'll have to remember to omit the apostrophe in searches. Even though beginners won't know the Klingon terms, it's nice to add them to the relevant pages now that we have a lot more {pab buvmey} than the classic {wot, Dip, chuvmey je}. It's also a good way to learn the ones you don't know. Voragh ------------------------------Original Message------------------------------ From: tlhIngan-Hol On Behalf Of Lieven L. Litaer via tlhIngan-Hol Sent: Friday, May 19, 2023 11:20 AM I just fixed that, but unfortunately, the software ignores the apostrophe (because it's part of the programming) so you will only find it when searching for *qunI* (withou apostrophe). The reason for the Klingon term not being there is because it is expected that most users of the wiki are beginners, so they would search for English terms rather than Klingon. But anyway, it's there now, and I think that's a good addition. I'll add that to the others pages as well. Am 19.05.2023 um 15:56 schrieb Steven Boozer via tlhIngan-Hol:

I didn’t know of it before, but I do now and will use it!  One suggestion:  someone should add the Klingon word for adverbial < {qunI’} to the page, perhaps in the first sentence. Searching {qunI’} in the search box came up with zero matches let alone this page.

Voragh